Pa. high court rejects appeal in 1987 slaying

UNIONTOWN, Pa.—The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of a western Pennsylvania man facing retrial in the 1987 stabbing death of a waitress.

Mark Breakiron, 52, of Hopwood, was convicted of first-degree murder in Fayette County and sentenced to death in the 1987 slaying of waitress Saundra Martin. Prosecutors say he stabbed the 24-year-old Smithfield woman 20 times and cut her throat before stealing her purse and bags of money from Shenanigan's Lounge in German Township.

A federal judge in 2011 overturned the conviction, citing tainted testimony from another inmate.

Without comment, the high court on Wednesday rejected a double jeopardy argument against a new trial at which prosecutors will again seek capital punishment.

The state's highest court also rejected a challenge to a lower court decision denying Breakiron's request that jurors not be allowed to hear evidence of torture and robbery during a retrial, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (http://bit.ly/MNuRxf) reported.

Breakiron contested the robbery conviction, cited as an aggravating circumstance by prosecutors as the reason he deserved the death penalty. He contended that he didn't steal money from the bar until he returned later to dispose of Martin's body, which would make that crime a theft, not a robbery. Defense attorneys also argued that Martin wasn't tortured, another aggravating circumstance cited by prosecutors.